Why did the mass murder of 19 disabled people in Japan barely rate?

Carly Findlay

A week ago today in Japan, 26 year old Satoshi Uematsu stabbed 19 people to death, and injured a further 26 in the quiet town of Sagamihara. The attack was on disabled people in a residential care home, where Uematsu previously worked.

After the slaughter, the Uematsu tweeted: "I hope for world peace. Beautiful Japan!!!!!!"

A man prays at a makeshift altar in front of the Tsukui Yamayuri En care centre for the disabled in Sagamihara, Japan. Photo: The Asahi Shimbun

He then handed himself into the police. The Guardian reported he told police: "It is better that disabled people disappear."

Uematsu had written to the Japanese government in February this year, outlining his intent to kill. He was hospitalised involuntarily for two weeks, and released without charge. Part of his chilling letter read:

Satoshi Uematsu, the suspect of the knife attack, leaves a police station in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo, to be sent to prosecutors. Photo: Kyodo News/AP

My reasoning is that I may be able to revitalise the world economy and I thought it may be possible to prevent World War III.

I envision a world where a person with multiple disabilities can be euthanised, with an agreement from the guardians, when it is difficult for the person to carry out household and social activities.

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I believe there is still no answer about the way of life for individuals with multiple disabilities. The disabled can only create misery. I think now is the time to carry out a revolution and to make the inevitable but tough decision for the sake of all mankind. Let Japan take the first big step.

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This massacre is Japan's biggest mass killing since World War II. Yet coming as it did amidst a series of ISIS-related terror attacks and unrest around the world, the media has been relatively quiet about this shocking attack. While I acknowledge the existence of compassion fatigue, I couldn't help noticing there was little social media solidarity - unlike for Paris, Nice, Orlando, Kabul, Baghdad. There was no hashtag. No public outcry. Not even prayers. When I posted about it on Facebook, people told me they hadn't heard about it.

In this age of algorithmic curation, it's no wonder this hasn't been popping up all over our newsfeed: barely anyone is talking about it. Very few people are talking about the targeted massacre of 19 disabled people.

Disability activist Sam Connor noticed, too. "In the wake of other mass murders and hate crimes, there were outpourings of public grief, rallying of communities, shows of solidarity. After Japan - perhaps the only mass hate crime where the killer had clearly signalled his intention to 'euthanise' hundreds of disabled people prior to the event - there was nothing," she said.

"Nobody is speculating whether views like those of Peter Singer, who advocates for infanticide against disabled babies and the killing of disabled people, have contributed to this tragedy and whether this is the inevitable conclusion of expressing views about disability genocide."

Connor also speculates on the way the victims have not been mentioned - perhaps because in Japan, disability is considered as shameful.

"It's almost worse that nobody is speaking about it. No names, no mass laying of flowers. It's disability erasure. Those victims, it is like they never existed", she said.

The idea that the lives of disabled people are worthless is not a new one. The media may be tempted to portray this attack as a random incident; something that, unlike the lone wolf inspired by ISIS, is not part of a broader ideology or pattern. Not something we need to worry about. But this is not true.

People with disability are at greater risk of violence than the general population, in Australia and internationally. Most of my friends with disabilities have been told we should kill ourselves at some point of my life. I've even been told this on a date. Others are told this by strangers.

In addition to this, people with disability are exposed to practices that qualify as torture or ill treatment, as well as multiple forms and varying degrees of 'deprivation of liberty', and are subjected to "unregulated or under-regulated restrictive interventions and practices, often imposed as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience, or retaliation by staff, family members or others providing support".

It's no coincidence that media coverage of the murders of disabled people is often sympathetic to the killer, particularly in domestic cases. The high profile 2014 murder-suicide by 44-year-old Lockhart man Geoff Hunt of his disabled wife and their three children is a case in point. The killer was described as "a well respected and much loved farmer" who had felt the strain of caring for his wife, who was painted as a burden with an acquired brain injury.

Bonnie Millen, Acting President of People with Disabilities Australia, also believes those who kill disabled people are given more sympathy than deserved.

"Mercy killings are well-known to be conducted at the hands of parents or carers of children and adults with severe disabilities, and one has to question what supports they had in place leading up to their decision to murder in the terms of 'mercy', 'compassionate euthanasia' or even 'compassionate homicide'.

The silence around the Sagamihara murders over the past week suggests to me people think these disabled lives are worth less. That their deaths are indeed a burden relieved from society. Or perhaps mainstream society is simply able to distance itself from the fear such an act evokes in those of us with disabilities.

Tragically, other Japanese people with disabilities are now living in fear since last week's massacre. It's been reported those in care facilities are scared they'll be killed too.

"When a mass murder conducted in a care home in Japan, a country known for its peaceful nature and world-class care of individuals, the subject is ignored rather than questioned," Millen says. "Yet murder has been splashed everywhere this year."

She continues: "Maybe it is too hard to look people with disabilities in the eye and recognise them as a person. That is horrible, sad and twisted."

It's time disabled people are valued while we are alive - so that people don't look away when we've been killed.